


so I got wasted like all my potential

by toastweasel



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Cigarettes, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Kyalin Solstice Exchange 2020, Modern AU, Modern Era, Role Reversal, its an AU! I do what I want!, like what is lin flunked out of cop school and became the problem child instea, lilyweed, role versal is for su and lin, the cloudkids dont know each other or the beifongs here, where do I even start for the tags for this....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28217076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastweasel/pseuds/toastweasel
Summary: Lin Beifong is having a bad life. She's flunked out of the police academy, is stuck in a major she doesn't like to try and please her mother, and then her stupid, eggheaded boyfriend breaks up with her during finals.Good thing a certain longboarding anthropologist PhD candidate is on the case.Kyalin Discord Solstice Exchange 2020. For Possum. :)
Relationships: Lin Beifong & Kya II, Linzin breakup, romance heavily implied tho
Comments: 11
Kudos: 69





	so I got wasted like all my potential

**Author's Note:**

> Always said I wouldn't write Kya taking care of Lin without some reciprocation, but HERE I AM. I am a sham. 
> 
> This one was for Possum, who requested a longboarding/skateboarding AU. Which had me thinking about Punk!Lin. Which, ah... Oops. Hope you enjoy anyway :) 
> 
> cw: alcohol, drug, and cigarette use. Title from this is me trying by Taylor Swift.

**so I got wasted like all my potential**

When Lin Beifong wanted to skip class, avoid her uppity boyfriend, and forget the world, she went to the skate park.

Not because she could skate. Oh no, she couldn’t skate worth a damn.

No, it was because the skate park was the only place Lin could smoke and drink a fifth of baijiu without anyone (A) calling the cops on her or (B) telling her those two particular vices were unhealthy for a twenty year old to indulge in.

It made things harder in the winter, when snow blanketed the ground, but she was a big girl and could cope with a little cold. However when it was the end of the summer term, like it was today, Lin could just sit on one of the picnic tables and lean back against the hard metal of the chain link fence to enjoy her vices in peace.

It was hot, but comfortably so, the midday sun beating down on the concrete of the skate park and the cicadas whirring loudly in the trees lining the road. Lin wasn’t particularly warm, all things considered; however, it wouldn’t be at all comfortable for the city police in their heavy, black canvas uniforms. Lin took a vicious sort of pleasure in thinking about how miserable her sister would be on her beat and lit her cigarette, taking a puff and letting the smoke spiral into the summer sky.

She should have been in her law class, reviewing for the final exam, but she knew it all so well already there wasn’t really a point. Occasionally when she came to the park she would let herself wallow in the abject misery of her life, but today she just lit her cigarette and watched the skaters do loops on the mini-ramps and in the bowls.

There was a new skater today, a beautiful woman with brown skin and dark hair who did air like it was her job. Lin had never seen her before, didn’t recognize the flowy harem pants or the crop top or the multi-colored shawl she tossed at her friend as she rolled up to them. But her betrothal necklace said Water Tribe, and the glint in her eyes as she looked Lin’s way spelled trouble.

And then, like trouble was wont to do, she started her way.

Lin put on her meanest scowl. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to smoke and disassociate in peace.

“Hey there,” the woman said happily as she approached, “Do you need to borrow a board?”

“No.”

She tipped her head over her shoulder, and Lin watched as the little hanging bits of her necklace swung with the movement. “You wanna come join us?”

Lin flicked the ash off the tip of her smoke and took a pointed puff instead of responding.

“Alright, no worries,” the woman said with an easy grin, “catch you round.”

That smile, ear to ear in a way that kicked Lin solely in the chest. And then the woman was gone, rolling across the skate park back to her friends.

Lin stared after her like she’d been struck by lightning. She didn’t even know her name.

* * *

Lin Beifong couldn’t believe she was crying in a fucking café.

Tenzin had dumped her, in front of the Spirits and everyone, in the philosophy quad almost thirty minutes earlier just after her law final. She had another one in two hours, couldn’t make it home and back in time, and that  _ motherfucker  _ had—

She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep the sob in as the tears tracked silently down her cheeks. She stared futilely at the notebook open on the table in front of her, but it was no use. She had thought she might have been able to keep her composure in a public place, because if she had gone to the library she undoubtedly would have cried the entire time and not gotten anything done.

But it was not working here either, and she was definitely going to fail this exam.

She was going to fail this exam because that utter  _ asshole _ couldn’t remember her exam schedule and now she was going to fail methods because—

“Hey, rough chem exam, wasn’t it?”

Lin was jolted from her thoughts and looked up just in time to see the girl from the skate park drop into the seat opposite her. She’s about to snap at her, ask her  _ what the fuck are you doing _ , when the woman opened her bag and slapped an open notebook on the table.

_ Are you safe? _

The words were printed in big, bold letters on the open page, and it was then that Lin saw the sharpie tucked into the other woman’s dark bun as she dug through her backpack.

“So I thought we might study for bio together,” the woman said as she surfaced, pulling with her a laptop. She tapped the page of her notebook. “Y’know, so we don’t tank it together. Sound good?”

She tapped the page again, not taking her eyes off of Lin. She was for her response.

Lin swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Good,” she said with an encouraging smile. “I’m sure you didn’t fail the chem exam, by the way. You need anything before we start studying?”

She can’t help it, the ridiculousness of the question causing her to bark out, “I need a  _ fucking  _ cigarette.”

It’s louder than she intended, but the woman laughed anyway. “I don’t have nicotine, but I have some lilyweed.”

“Done.”

If she was going to fail this exam, she might as well fail it absolutely blasted.

Lin grabbed her notebook and her bag and the woman grabbed her things, too, which include, now that Lin is slightly more coherent, a longboard. They pushed outside, and the woman steered them for the boardwalk, digging in the pockets of her pants as they went

“I’m Kya, by the way,” the woman said as she pulled out the blunt.

“Lin.” She passed her her lighter and Kya lit up, taking a hit before handing the blunt and the lighter back to Lin.

She doesn’t usually smoke lilyweed, but she’ll make an exception for this fucking awful day. She inhaled a lungful of smoke and blew it out her nose, then took in a second before passing it back.

“So you’re actually okay, right?” Kya asked as they walked, the mid-afternoon sun bright on their faces. Lin wished she had thought to bring her sunglasses to campus. “I know it’s finals but…”

Lin kicked a can on the sidewalk harder than probably necessary. “I’m fine. My boyfriend—” She stopped, choked, and then in a fit of rage hurled her notebook over the seawall and into the sand. “Ugh, fuck him, that inconsiderate bald asswipe!”

Kya made a soft noise from beside her and handed her the blunt.

“He fucking broke up with me,” she spat. “Right before my fucking exam like a—” The tears were threatening to fall again, and she leaned listlessly again the concrete seawall to try to compose herself.

The tears came anyway, and she felt her throat getting tight as she tried to suppress them. It doesn’t work. She dropped the blunt to cover her eyes in shame, because like hell she wants this total stranger to see her cry. “Mom is going to fucking  _ kill _ me for failing methods.”

“Nobody’s going to kill you for failing an exam.”

“My mom is Toph Beifong,” Lin snapped darkly. “Of course I’m going to fucking die.”

She watched Kya process the news, that’s she was sitting here with the daughter of Republic City’s Chief of Police. Lin was sure she was going to leave because everyone does when they find out that fun little fact. She just leaned against the wall and wrapped her arms around Lin. 

“My Dad’s a councilman,” she murmured softly, and gave Lin a gentle squeeze, “trust me, I get it.”

Lin hasn’t been held by anyone besides Tenzin in so long that the touch is what finally broke her. It’s absolutely mortifying, having this perfect fucking stranger hold her as she sobbed, but she doesn’t care anymore. The last person who cared about her in the world just told her to go fuck herself and her life was in tatters and she’s fucking  _ done. _

Kya tucked her into her and she cried there, perched on the Republic City Sea Wall, shaking into the shoulder of a woman she barely knew. The woman in question was quiet, just gently rubbing her thumb along her shoulder despite the fact she knows she probably reeks of cigarettes.

“Fuck,” she mumbled pathetically, when all the tears were gone and it was just her, sticky and exhausted against Kya’s shoulder. “I have an exam in—” she checked her phone “—fuck, in half an hour.”

Kya shook her head. “No you don’t.”

“Pretty sure I do,” she groaned miserably.

“No you don’t,” she replied firmly. “You’re coming back to my apartment, we’re going to smoke another joint, and I’m going to park you on my couch to watch whatever shitty TV you want while I write my paper. And then I’m calling my mom to write you a sick note.”

Lin can’t comprehend her words. “Your…your mom?”

“She works at Yue General, she can say you got appendicitis or something,” Kya said with a wave of her hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll email your prof saying I’ve taken you to the hospital.”

She hiccupped miserably. What was she even  _ suggesting _ ?

“I don’t even  _ know  _ you.”

“No, you don’t,” the other woman replied gently. “But I’ve had a shitty breakup before. Now c’mon, phone.”

Lin handed it to her listlessly, because she doesn’t give a fuck anymore.

“Professor name?”

“Kang.”

She watched as Kya tapped out a very short but very professional email in a matter of seconds. She clicked send, gave Lin her phone back, then hauled her to her feet.

“You need that notebook?”

“Probably.”

Kya dropped her bag on her longboard and vaulted over the seawall with practiced ease, going to collect the spiral and its scattered papers from across the beach. Then she was back. She tucked Lin’s battered spiral into her bag, then took Lin’s arm and guided her gently back to her apartment.

* * *

Lin woke up on the couch of a woman she’d only met twice, swaddled under a thick woven blanket she didn’t remember falling asleep under.

Kya had brought her home to her tiny studio apartment and sat her down on her couch, just as promised. At some point, they’d ordered from Fire Fountain, and Lin had fallen asleep full of spicy noodles, watching reruns of Earth Rumble.

Now, as she woke in the warm morning light, she could hear Kya in the kitchen, humming softly as she made something on the stove. She reached for her phone and checked her messages, which included half a dozen from her mother, with various voice-to-text typos, and absolutely none from her sister.

She had had the presence of mind to tell her mother she was safe at least, and at a friend’s, but hadn’t told her she was staying the night. Her last text appeared to be from three in the morning, with her mother threatening to get a court order to track her phone.

> __ __ _ Lin to Momster: Fell asleep at friends. Will be home later. _

“You’re awake,” Kya said, once she noticed Lin was sitting up. “How’re you feeling?”

She tossed her phone on the end of the couch in disgust. “Like I want to slash his tires.”

“That’s the spirit,” was all Kya said, and a moment later she came over with a plate of dan bing and the leftovers noodles from the night before.

Lin took the proffered plates and chopsticks and ate quietly. “You get your paper done?”

“Mmhmm,” Kya said, slurping up her own noodles before snagging a piece of dan bing and popping it in her mouth. “Twenty pages done, hopefully enough to get my dissertation approved.”

Lin had learned, over fire noodles the previous evening and from the artifacts absolutely covering Kya’s apartment, that she was an anthropologist. She had spent most of the summer sailing, hopping from island to island, collecting oral histories and recording musical traditions across the Earth Kingdom atolls.

Much more exciting than the shitty law degree she was apparently trying to work her way towards.

“By the way, Mom stopped by last night after you fell asleep.” Kya reached over to the side table and passed over a piece of letterhead from Yue General with a doctor’s note asking her professors to excuse her absence from her finals above a healer’s near-illegible signature. She’s sorry to hear about your asshole ex and hopes you find someone better for you soon. She also dropped off some snacks but I’m not sure how excited you are about Water Tribe food.”

Lin took the paper with a soft sigh. “Thank you. For…all of this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kya said with a smile. “Just make sure you pass the favor on in the future.”

She stared at the paper a bit longer, then set it aside and finished her noodles. Kya fished for the remote and turned on the TV. Lin should have gone home, she should have emailed her professor her fake sick note and rescheduled her final exam. But she didn’t; instead she settled back on Kya’s couch and watched as she flipped through the channels looking for something suitably awful to watch.

Tenzin might have been a fucking asshole and her life might be falling apart, Lin thought as Kya finally settled on Future Industries Battle Bots with a delighted cheer, but at least she had a new friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine it takes a few months of friendship, but I think Lin aces her final, heals her broken heart (maybe by slashing Tenzin's tires, who knows, you decide), and spends the next semester snuggled on Kya's couch studying and hanging out with her new friends. Y'know, until at the end of the fall semester they finally realized they are in love and kiss. :)


End file.
